Hi! In a blog post, Jonathan Schwartz announced a Java application store for Java and JavaFX applications (think "iPhone App Store for Java"): http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/will_java_be_the_world
It seems like a good way to make money for Java and a necessity in the mobile arena where everybody and their dog copies the iPhone App Store. But there are some interesting questions being raised in an blog (http://www.javaworld.com/community/?q=node/2968), such as: Technical requirements. How do you define that a Java application "works"? If it works in a screen resolution of 800x600 on Windows with Java 1.4? 1024x768 on Windows and Mac with Java 5? All resolutions on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris? Most hobbyists at least probably test their Java app in a very few configurations (mostly whatever they develop on), so it's going to be interesting to see how the requirements are defined for an app (e.g., whether you can say "Requires Windows and Java 5"). This seems like an expensive thing to test for Sun and could use some "cloud-based" testing platform for developers (e.g., Sun gives you virtualized environments, remotely accessible, to test your app on Java 1.5 / 5 / 6 on Windows XP / Vista / 7, Mac OS X and Red Hat / Suse / Ubuntu Linux). The Apple App Store targets a closed, homogeneous platform where Apple controls both the hardware and the software (iPhone / iPod Touch), but even Apple doesn't sell Mac applications, yet (where it also controls at least the hardware and the OS). Business model: Apple doesn't make a whole lot of money off its iTunes store (most revenue goes to the content creator) and apparently off the App Store; these stores exist to sell the Apple hardware where Apple supposedly has a margin of around 50%. Sun doesn't make any money off most of the hardware being sold to use Java. So Sun carries the cost of testing the applications and distributing them - but how does it make money (apart from whatever cut it gets from the paid for applications)? Only indirectly, I suppose - through more people installing a Microsoft Live toolbar when downloading the JRE or getting more license fees from JavaFX Mobile by making the platform more attractive. Though I would assume that JavaFX Mobile license fees are under pressure- Flash Lite is on a billion devices, too (http://bloggy.kuneri.net/2009/02/16/flash-lite-on-1-billion-devices), and the upcoming Flash Player 10 for Smart Phones / TVs will be royalty-free, including the codecs (http://www.openscreenproject.org/ about/faq.html); Adobe makes money off their tools so they traditionally give away the runtime for free. What do you think? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
